Patent GB-728107-A (GB)
Title: Improvements in and relating to capping machines
IPC: B67B3/064
Filed: 1953-05-26
Abstract: 728,107. Stoppering. CROWN CORK & SEAL CO., Inc. May 26, 1953 [Aug. 28, 1952] No. 14691/53. Class 125 (2). [Also in Group 11] Relates to apparatus wherein a procession of bottles picks caps C from the bottom of a shoot 40 the caps being mixed randomly in a hopper 20 and each comprising a skirted body part which contacts the side walls 122, 124, Fig. 8, of the shoot and a skirt-carried locking lever accommodated by the space between the edges 118, 120 of top flanges of the shoot. The invention consists in the apparatus described below for feeding the caps in orientated manner from the hopper 20 to the shoot 40. A main pillar 24 carries a bracket 26 on which is mounted a slightly-inclined cap hopper 20 having a charging door 54. Caps pass from the lower end of the hopper 20 through an arcuate slot 64, Fig. 4, into an agitator chamber 28, the agitator of which comprises three blades 32 carried on a drum 31 rotated through a shaft 65 extending longitudinally of the hopper. Fig. 4, is a section on the line 4-4 of Fig. 1. Any caps fouling the edge 88 of slot 64 are cleared by the projecting part 92 of eccentric disc 90 also mounted on shaft 65. The upper right hand part, Fig. 4, of the side wall 84 of chamber 28 has an aperture (not shown) through which the caps are ejected upwardly. Behind the end wall of chamber 28 there lies a disc 36 carried on a shaft 72 and rotated through a belt 74 by a motor 78 mounted on bracket 26. Agitator shaft 65 is driven through a slipping clutch 68 and a belt 69 from the shaft 72. The disc 36 has a ring of magnetic inserts 38 which pick up the cap ejected from the chamber 28 and carry them round in an anticlockwise direction, Figs. 4 and 8, until they reach a bar 107 which is stationary and spaced from the surface of disc 36 a sufficient distance to allow the body of a cap to pass thereunder if its entire skirt edge contacts the disc 36. Other caps will be removed from disc 36 by bar 107 and diverted back into hopper 20 by plates 96, 97, 98. Correctly positioned stoppers are drawn under bar 107 until their outer edge contacts a second bar 105 disposed at right-angles to disc 36. The cap is then drawn along in a straight line path with its locking lever trailing on the edge 109 of bar 107, until it reaches a short curved slot 114 formed by two edges 112, 116, the slot leading into the cap shoot. The shoot 40 curves downwardly in contact with the disc 36 and then slopes away from the disc. At this point a finger 154 running in a circular groove 152 in disc 36 and carried by the shoot, picks the caps off the surface of the disc for progress down the shoot at the bottom of which they are arrested by inturned pivoted fingers 160. These fingers are spread by a passing bottle to allow extraction of a cap. If caps should build up at the entrance to slot 114, the excess are regularly returned to hopper 20 by a finger 132 regularly reciprocated behind the bar 107 by a cam 146 mounted on the back surface, Fig. 8, of disc 136. The cam acts on a roller 140 carried on one end of double lever 126, 138 pivotally mounted at 128 and carrying at its other end the finger 132. The finger is urged to its raised position by a spring 134. A bar 104 is spaced a sufficient distance from the surface of disc 36 to intercept any cap which is being carried on top of another cap which is itself moving with disc 36. Specification 727,293 is referred to.